Student Debt Strike is Finally Happening!

The “Corinthian 15” have fired the opening salvo in a nationwide movement to strike student debt.

A group of courageous students, caught in the cruelest of debt traps, has decided they are done waiting for relief that will never come. Enough is enough. Today, the Corinthian 15 are going on debt strike.

Scammed from first to last by one of America’s most unscrupulous for-profit colleges and denied a rightful debt discharge by the Department of Education, they are saying “We Owe You Nothing.” In a gesture of solidarity with the strikers, the Rolling Jubilee has announced that it has erased more than $13 million of student debt owed by students of Everest College, a subsidiary of Corinthian….

Although the Corinthian 15 are fighting against some of the worst creditors in our predatory system, they are taking a stand for everyone who finds themselves saddled with decades of education debt. For-profits are only the most exploitative part of America’s debt-financed higher education system–public and private universities are little better. While the crushing burden of debt affects most students, those with the least resources are paying the highest price….

Student loan debt has tripled over the last decade, turning higher education into a pathway to poverty for all but the well-heeled. Everyone knows that huge chunks of U.S. student debt–more than $1.3 trillion and growing–cannot and never will be repaid. But, though nearly half of outstanding student debt is effectively in default or other forms of nonpayment, default on an individual basis is not leading to change; it is only causing misery, depression, and worse. Joining together to refuse repayment publicly and collectively is the only way to end the injustice of debt-financed education. The Corinthian 15 are the first to stand up and take collective action.

A strike is typically a last resort, when all other alternatives are exhausted. The Corinthian 15 certainly see it that way. State attorneys general, like California’s Kamala Harris, legislators, like Elizabeth Warren and Maxine Waters, and even government agencies, like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, have all tried to secure justice for them. But the Department of Education has not listened. Instead of protecting the students, it has bailed out the college’s investors, acting like a debt collector for a predatory lender. The Corinthian 15 have concluded they have no other alternative….

Author: David McElroy

David Allen McElroy has served as a journalist and a chaplain to hospitals and nursing homes. He continues writing on the world-wide web and has much archived in the forum at BreakingAllTheRules.com. He has a B.A. in Bible from Fresno Pacific College. David stands for Truth, Justice, & Liberty in Christ's Love!
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